Every month I am going to lay out my income report. This is to reflect the success and failures I experience using the methods I blog about.

If you are interested in creating multiple streams of easy to manage income then join my Freelancer’s Insider List. There we discuss top level strategies to increase bookings, charge more and find better clients.

I have three source of income:

1)Entertainment

2)Coin/Gold/Pawn Shop

3)Online Freelancing

1)Entertainment:

My entertainment income this week was $0. The reason for this is that I have booked a full tour and have no more open dates available for the season. So it is a bummer to not have any extra income coming in but it is also amazing knowing that I worked hard to book a great season.

Extra Money, Extra Frustration

A lot of people have emailed me asking me why I don’t take extra bookings and farm them out to other entertainers. It was funny to see those emails because every variety entertainer dreams of being an agent.

I understand the surface appeal of being an agent. You don’t have to do the show, you take a cut of the profits and everyone goes home happy. In the real world entertainers don’t show up, client’s refuse to pay and shows end up being not as good as promised.

Profit to Struggle Ratio

I believe your profits should match the effort you have to put into them. Booking extra shows and then farming the show out and taking a cut of the profits is to much work. I would have to find multiple entertainers, vet all of them, make sure they get to shows, the client has a good time and that I follow up with everyone.

The amount of time I have to spend to make sure everything turns out okay doesn’t match the amount of profit I earn.

Next Month

There will be a big uptick next two month from my bookings!

2)Coin/Gold/Pawn Shop:

The shop had an okay month. I was honestly surprised. Normally March is an incredibly slow month (this was the first year we made a profit). Why? Most people get their tax rebate checks in March so very few people are selling stuff to get money.

Coin Show Season

Another reason March is a slow month is that the end of March and first half of April are when the big coin shows are in our area. Whenever a big coin show comes to town purchasing falls off for a few weeks because customers are saving up for something at the show.

We don’t participate in coin shows (or flea markets). Why? The last couple of years the coin show market has bottomed out. Vendors became competitive and started carrying wholesale products to shows instead of normal stock.

The coin show market has also bottomed out because of the gold and silver market. It used to be you would buy and sell a little gold and silver at the show and everything else was coins and estates. Now most people use coin shows as a chance to create predatory price gouging for bullion.

How We Made a Profit

We made a profit this month by serving existing customers. I know that isn’t exciting to read but that is huge. I made money this month by selling stock to my customer base, enough so that I turned a profit. That’s crazy! Most of the profit that comes from owning a coin store is buying large amounts, estates and jewelery and then selling it wholesale.

Next Month

April is a weird month. Some years we do crazy numbers because people are selling stuff at the last second to pay extra taxes. Some years we do nothing. My prediction this year….BIG WINS!

March’s Profits:$2,135.00

3)Online earnings:

If you read last month’s income report you know that my online earnings were super small. Had I failed somewhere or lost the touch? No. I got stuck in a weird billing cycle and all the money I earned last month I got paid this month.

If you didn’t read last month’s income report I made $260 although i did $1700 worth of work. I didn’t count the money I was owed because I wanted people interested in freelancing full time to see that payment plans can be weird at times.

What I Earned this Month

This month I didn’t do any work online. Why? I was in Rome and mountain climbing (article coming soon on this)! It was an amazing time. I was gone for fifteen days and during that I did nothing (well almost).

However I got paid this month for all the work I did last month. So this month I earned $1338.00 in income (if you noticed that 1338 minus 1700 isn’t 260 that’s because I included the fees I paid to my billing processor. So yes I made $102 more but since I didn’t receive it and won’t pay taxes on it my true number is 1338).

I Actually Earned More than $1338

Okay so I fell into another weird billing cycle! While in Rome I booked an email mailing sequence. I did it the day after I got back but because of when I finished I won’t get paid until next week (which puts me in the April time zone).

This is great because I started the month with an extra paycheck. The downside is that I won’t get a second paycheck in April because of the billing cycles. However I should have a larger than normal paycheck the first week of May!

Earnings:$1338.00

Final Thoughts

Total Earnings:$3,473.00

March was a pretty good month! I was gone for half the month and earned no extra income from booking entertainment and I still broke the 3k mark. That is what living a gold rich life is all about! Want to start living your gold rich life? Want to be able to take half month long vacations and come home to profits in your bank accounts?

Want To Book your First $10,000 Month?

I had two $10,000 months using simple, easy to apply tactics to generate bookings, increase income and do the work I wanted. I already had two $10,000 months since I started working for myself.

You can book your first 10k month using simple, easy to employ strategies.

Think about where you will be in a year if you keep putting in systems? What if your average was $12,000 a month? Do the math. That would make your year come out to be $132,000 a year.

That’s a big number! Let’s add to it! Consider every year you are learning more, adding more value and increasing your reach.

In 18 months you could go from 0k a month to 10k a week with the right systems.

Your dreams are possible! You can earn over $10,000 dollar months using simple, easy to employ change. Interested in learning how to?

Join my Freelancer’s Insider List and you will learn how to book better clients, charge higher rates and do the work you love from wherever you want!

It was late Saturday night and me and my buddy had just finished climbing. “Want to get a drink?” he asked. Before I could answer my phone beeped. I checked the screen and found I made $497. “Sure,” I said smiling, “Drinks are one me.”

How I Occasionally Make $497

About once every other month I make $497. I’ll be working on a project, at the gym, driving to see some friends and my phone will ping with a notification. Why does this happen? Simple. A couple years ago when I toured full time as a stage hypnotist I released a ‘Stop Smoking’ sales package. The package included two one hour Skype sessions that, if the client did what I said, they would stop smoking.

I sold a lot of these sessions (Interested in selling enough to take week long out of country trips? Join my Freelancer’s Insider List to learn how. Click Here To Join) I would pitch them at the end of my show. The audience was primed to buy. They had watched how powerful hypnosis was and that combined with the comedy left them feeling great. I averaged a sell per show.

I stopped touring full time. Sales fell off. I knew if I was to keep selling the course I would have to make some changes. And I wanted to keep selling. The course was great and I knew it could help. I also didn’t like losing that extra income. So I decided to write a sales letter.

How I Came To Write The Worst Sales Letter of All Time

When I started freelancing I didn’t copywrite. I started freelancing ghostwriting and doing layout design. I charged $25 an hour (big money for me at the time) and picked up gigs to cover bills when needed.

I had no experience with copywriting and I wanted an online sales letter to promote my course. I went to Elance (yeah this was a while ago). I made a post and was floored at how expensive the bids were. People were wanting HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS (insert maniacal laugh now).

Writing My Own Sales Letter

I felt these people were out of their minds. I closed my account and decided to write the letter myself. I had zero experience in copywriting. The experience I did have was listening to some old Dan Kennedy Marketing Mastermind Tapes.

I sat down and didn’t get up till three hours later. I had cranked out my first, and worst, sales letter. It was awful. I had misspelled words, confused tenses, run-on sentences and a host of randomly bolded or underlined terms. My thinking was this, I would copy what I had seen in other sales letters.

How I Wrote My First Letter

I copied what I saw in other sales letters without understanding why copywriters make the decisions they do. I didn’t understand reader formatting, highlighting for short term readers, pacing, affirmation, lead generation or call to actions.

I wrote one of the worst sales letters ever written. It was a mess, it read poorly and it was confusing to look at. Even with all those problems the letter still made money. In fact the letter still makes money for me today!

How A Terrible Sales Letter Can Succeed

If you are reading this it is because you want to know how a terrible sales letter loaded with problems, written by a guy who wasn’t a copywriter could succeed. The reason is simple. My sales letter has two key features.

I broke down my letter and created a two punch system to increase conversions, generate massive sells and remove the barrier between you and great copy.

What is awesome is you can learn from my awful sales letter. You can apply this two punch system immediately. All you have to do is the following.

The Two Punch System To Epic Sales Letter Income

Punch 1: Be Honest.

This sounds crazy. The last thing most people think when they think of marketing is honesty. AND THAT IS WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT! Readers are smart. It doesn’t take much to set off someone’s bullshit radar.

As a hypnotist I knew how important it was to be honest with an audience. Most hypnotists suck because they lie to their audiences about how powerful hypnosis is, who they are, etc. I knew that if my shows were to go well the audience had to trust me.

Trust creates social proof. The more an audience trusted me the better a hypnotist they saw me as. This created a cycle that made me a better performer. This same principle works in copywriting.

Being honest with your readers will create social proof. The more social proof you create the more your reader’s barriers come down. The less barriers your readers have the more likely they are to purchase.

Here is an example from my sales letter and from a competitor’s sales letter. The competitor’s letter makes unverifiable claims, all vague. My claims are more direct and more honest. Read both and decide which one you trust more.

Competitor’s Letter:

“If you are ready to stop smoking then you need hypnosis. Almost everyone who tries to quit smoking fails. Maintaining willpower is difficult. That’s why I offer the willpower self hypnosis cure. Using our self hypnosis tapes you will discover the willpower you need and banish your desire to smoke.”

My Letter:

“Look I am gonna be honest. 80% of you reading this don’t need what i’m selling. Heck, most people don’t want to quit smoking. Those that want to quit can usually manage it cold turkey. Then why am I selling this? Well there is a group of people that want to quit, like really quit, tried and failed. I’m talking to those people. If you want to quit but haven’t been able to I have something that might help.”

The Tiny Differences Matter

See the difference? The first letter makes a simple claim. You can stop with will power. Smokers know this isn’t true! Will power isn’t what keeps a smoker from quitting.

Look at my letter. It truly is awful (I removed all the random underlined words and bolding). But it is so much more believable. I am honest with the reader. I don’t sell to every smoker. I am trying to sell to a select group. I have something that can help people who want to quit but have failed.

Why Targeted Honesty Works

I’m not selling a perma-cure, i’m not selling to everyone, I am selling to one specific group. My wording makes it clear that I understand what the 20% wants and I mention what I can do ‘might help’. I don’t make impossible claims or offer magic cures I offer my ‘help’.

Honesty is powerful but honesty alone won’t work. You also need targeted language which brings me to punch 2 of my one, two combo.

Punch 2:Use Targeted Language. Sell to someone, not everyone.

Look we are greedy. It’s built into us. We all suffer from scarcity mindset. We are programmed to want to get as much as we can whenever we can.

You see this all the time in mediocre copywriting. Most copywriters promise what they offer can fix everything for everyone. That isn’t how real life works! One pill can’t fix everything, one diet doesn’t work the same for everyone, one size doesn’t fit all.

In my sales letter I mention I am not selling to everyone. I am selling to people that want to quit smoking, have tried to quit, they failed at quitting and feel helpless they can’t. That’s targeted.

I’m not selling to smokers who want to quit. I am selling to a specific group using language that they use with themselves.

Why Targeted Language Works

Using targeted language is like being honest. Clients invest social proof in your writing when they feel it understands them. When was the last time you came across something that interested you but you didn’t buy the product, join the mailing list, follow the link?

It happens all the time. We only look at content that speaks to us. My letter spoke to a core group of people who felt specifically about this one thing. When they read what I wrote they had one thought, ‘He understands.’ People will pay you a lot if they feel you understand them.

The Key Takeaway:Why You Should Pay Attention Even if you aren’t a Copywriter

That is transformational content. On its surface you got an easy to use, immediately applicable system to make every piece of sales copy you write instantly better. Underneath that is the real gold.

Underneath the sales tactics I pull the curtain back on the real game being played. Running an online business, freelancing, selling, it is all about social proof, positioning through understanding and being honest.

If you want to learn more about the real game of online business join my Freelancer’s Insider List. Inside you will learn secrets behind winning at the real game. You will learn:

*How to maximize your income

*Why You aren’t getting clients you want, and how to change that

*How to Become a Top Performer In your Field in under a Month

*Specific, Targeted income growth tactics to transform your take home income

He asked sliding the card back into the wallet. I wondered what was going on, “Sure.” I said. Outside at the car he broke down. He explained why I had to pay. What he said wasn’t a surprise. Why? This wasn’t the first time a friend had done this to me.

What was the problem? Simple. My buddy was afraid he didn’t have enough money in his account to pay his check.

Empty Account Anxiety

People don’t make enough money. My buddy had a good job and little debt. But he had nothing in his account. He was more comfortable having me, his freelancing friend who hadn’t had a real job in six years, cover the cost of his meal. Why? He had Empty Account Anxiety.

What is Empty Account Anxiety? Empty Account Anxiety is when you are afraid to purchase something because you don’t know if you have the money in your account to cover the cost. I wanted to fix this so I invented a cure.

The Cure for Empty Account Anxiety

Empty Account Anxiety can suck. I know I suffered from it. In high school I got a date with my dream girl. I had a HUGE crush on her and had finally asked her out (after a year of waiting and worrying). The date started well. She laughed at my jokes, we went ice skating. Then things went south.

The date turned bad during dinner. We made a last second restaurant change. I wanted to impress her and ended up at a place WAYYYYY out of my price range. I was super anxious after that and the date ended horribly (my fault). I knew something had to change.

What Went Wrong

If I had earned more money I wouldn’t have been so nervous. If I hadn’t been nervous the date would have gone better. My problem was simple. My income was related to the time I could put towards earning it.

The more I worked the more money I had. But I was trapped. I was in school and didn’t have a lot of time to work. As you can imagine my account was always small. Then I received some advice that changed my life.

Life Changing Advice

I was at the library working on a project when I overheard the woman next to me listening to Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn is a motivational speaker who focuses on increasing your personal value. What I heard stopped me in my tracks. I remember to this day exactly what he said (because I wrote it down).

A switch went off in my mind. I had to get better. I started studying, reading, listening to talks on cd’s (yeah this was a long time ago). I realized that if I wanted my account to be bigger I had to increase my value.

Why You Should be More Valuable

People pay for things they value. The more value you bring to a project the more you can charge. I can charge twice what my competition charged as a stage hypnotist because I was a more valuable entertainer.

“How’s that possible?”

-You

I provide a more satisfying experience for my customer. I wasn’t just an entertainer I was a businessman, consultant and counselor. When a customer would call me I could give them referrals, consult on their plans and offer the reassurance on their personal anxieties. I demonstrated value through authority and could charge twice to three times what my competition did.

How to Be More Valuable

The fastest way to cure Empty Account Anxiety is to make more money. To make more money you need to increase your value. It doesn’t matter what your market is you can always increase your value. Are you a graphic designer? You can increase your value. Are you a dog walker? You can increase your value. Do you run an online business or brand? You can DEFINITELY increase your value.

Below is a step by step cheat sheet to immediately increase your value in the eyes of your market.

-How To Up Your Income Without Working More-

A Cheatsheet To Increase Your Value

A 3 Step Method

Step 1:Create Social Proof:

Research shows that consumers pay more when they feel you understand their needs. Here is a Freakonomics podcast to explain why.

When you write a proposal you want your client to see you understand their needs. When a client sees you understand what they want you have created social proof. The more social proof you can create the more authority you appear to have. Social proof is powerful. Creating social proof is a great way for them to qualify you without you being there.

Take five minutes before talking with your next client and create a list. On this list put three problems the client has, three reasons they worry why this is a problem and then three ways you can or have solved these problems.

Doing just this puts you light years ahead of your competition who is copy and pasting some lame ass template they downloaded and filled in.

Step 2:Say only what is needed.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking more is more. The power of clarity comes in brevity. If you can condense six pages of information into six sentences always go with the six sentences.

When writing proposals keep them short and on point. That also means cutting out all the bragging. Let your social proof speak for you. Clients don’t want to hear what you did they want to hear what you will do for them. Respect their time and get to the point.

Step 3:Price in a Tier.

Okay this is less cheat sheet and more tactical. Okay it is super tactical. I try to avoid tactics because they don’t usually apply across the board. This one can.

Pricing in a tier let’s you valuate layers of results for your client and demonstrates the time and effort it takes to reach each tier.

Tier 3:A whole campaign. This is the whole kit and kaboodle. You get the sales letter, email nurturing sequence, social media posts, everything. This is the one the client should go with if they want a cohesive campaign.

Each tier educates the client on what you deliver. Some clients only want a sales page but don’t realize they need follow up emails, social media backing, etc. Some clients want the second tier not realizing they won’t realize their sales or conversion goals if they don’t have a complete campaign.

Some clients only want the first tier to test the next step forward.

Key Takeaway

The best way to increase your value is meet your client at their level, educate them through social proof, be efficient and deliver them the results they want to pay for.

I’ve got more tactics, tricks, head hacks and income increasing strategies i’m releasing on my Freelancer’s Insider List. If you are interested in receiving once a month in depth updates and reports to make more money, get more clients and find the freedom you want.

Monthly Income Report for February 2016

Monthly Earnings Report:Every month I am going to lay out my income report. This is to reflect the success and failures I experience using the methods I blog about.

I have three source of income:

1)Entertainment

2)Coin/Gold/Pawn Shop

3)Online Freelancing

1)Entertainment:

February unrolled like I predicted last month. Last month I mentioned I had finished booking a touring season which meant I probably won’t have any entertainment income starting back up until April. I

For February this prediction proved correct. I did not book any shows this month meaning my entertainment income is $0. With that said I want to touch on some awesome things that happened this month.

Marketing Makes Magic

Using a system to keep leads coming into your funnel is the secret to increasing income and creating a rich life. In my Freelancer’s Insider List you learn how to make money even when you aren’t working, check it out! My schedule was booked up but I got offered another $2500 in bookings. I couldn’t fufill the bookings as the dates were filled so I passed them off to other entertainers, for free! That’s right I believe in paying it forward and by sharing qualified leads with trusted allies I was able to serve a customer, provide amazing service and create some awesome good vibes!

Next Month

March will be even slower than this month. I am gone for half the month on a trip to Rome! I will be out of country to take my father to Rome using the income i’ve earned from freelancing. But that means March will be even slower than Feb. But guess what, I don’t care! I have awesome systems in place, work booked starting in April and going to June and I have awesome systems in place to keep work coming in!

2)Coin/Gold/Pawn Shop:

The shop had another stellar month. My prediction from last month was incorrect. What happened? Well we moved three large purchases and resells through the shop in a very short period of time.

How To Capitalize on the Upswings

The coin/gold/pawn business relies on capitalizing on the upswings. We had three major deals come through our shop that allowed us to turn a large profit. The catch was that we had to use large amounts of available cash and have a reputation people can trust.

Why Reputation Makes Money

Me and my partner have worked hard to create and amazing reputation. You come to our area and people know WE are the service to work with. The same is true in any industry. If you are a freelancer it matters twice as much. Why? Because if you want to transition from part time freelancer to full time passive income you need a stellar reputation that proceeds you.

A great reputation brings work to you, it gets clients to trust putting you on retainer and it generates referrals.

What we Made

Once again my partner has asked that I not give a detailed description of what was bought and sold to ensure the privacy of our customers. That is fair. So I am going to reveal the take home profit after sales, costs and restocking.

This month the shop made over $6,500.00. That’s not a bad month considering we moved HUGE amounts of stock, at wholesale rates in a couple of hours. Since I have a lot of work coming in April I reinvested our profits into filling stock for the shop. That means that I drew zero earnings this week from the shop.

Wait, What?!

That’s right. This month I drew zero earnings from the shop. It protects me from certain taxes (legally). That means that so far I had zero income this month that I put in my bank account.

Why?

I mentioned above that I have work coming so I don’t need this cash right now. But the bigger reason is that you have to take time to reinvest in yourself, your services and your life every quarter. My stock has shrunk so I took this windfall as an oppurtunity to grow my long term stock. Doing this keeps long term customers happy, gives me larger pieces to leverage for trade later if I need them and it keeps my wholesale numbers high.

3)Online earnings:

This one is going to hurt the most! I booked 26 hours of online work for the month of Feb. However I entered into a contract through an unusual system so I won’t get paid until March!

Why I am not counting the money I earned this month

So if I was to give the number I earned this month from online work it would be $1,690 for freelancing and another $400 from online sales. However the only money that came in this month was a sobering $260.00. So I am only going to count February’s income as $260.00

The reason I do this is to show that there will be times when payment schedules and clients don’t pay on time. If you plan to launch your Livegoldrich life you need to be prepared for unusual situation like this. Why? Imagine this. You are going into next month knowing you have $1,500.00 in bills that have to get paid (not counting expenses).

But you are good. You have $2800 in work for the month. Not only will you pay the bills you are going to put some aside and TREAT YOURSELF. But then something happens and you find that yes you will get your money but not until next month. Could you survive?

Great freelancers do because it happens all the time. So to share that with you this month I made $260.00 online

Final Thoughts

Total Earnings:$6,760.00

Or, minus the shop’s reinvestment

Total Earnings Revised:$260.00

February was a buffer month. I got stuck in an unusual billing cycle meaning that the month of March, where I won’t have much time to work, i’ll make all of last month’s money.

* The shop did well again, to my surprise. Because of this I reinvested all my profits into stock.

* Bookings were zero, but if I had an open spot I could have filled another $2500.00

* My online income from copywriting exploded this month.

* I can’t rely on students to initiate contact with me for coaching.

So what was the key takeaway from this month! Be prepared for unusual situations. Have an emergency fund or cash set back in your savings because you will experience times where you’ll do a lot of work but not get paid until next month

Want To Book your First $10,000 Month?

I had two $10,000 months using simple, easy to apply tactics to generate bookings, increase income and do the work I wanted. I have had two $10,000 months since I started working for myself and I am getting ready to have more!

You can book your first 10k month using simple, easy to employ strategies.

Think about where you will be in a year if you keep putting in systems? What if your average was $12,000 a month? Do the math. That would make your year come out to be $132,000 a year.

That’s a big number! Let’s add to it! Consider every year you are learning more, adding more value and increasing your reach.

In 18 months you could go from 0k a month to 10k a week with the right systems.

Your dreams are possible! You can earn over $10,000 dollar months using simple, easy to employ change. Interested in learning how to?

Join my Freelancer’s Insider List and you will learn how to book better clients, charge higher rates and do the work you love from wherever you want!